Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B125A — The nightingale and the copperhead.
Source data for narratives and traditions is drawn from Berezkin’s Analytical Catalogue. If you use this data, please acknowledge and link to it: Ю.Е. Березкин, Е.Н. Дувакин. Тематическая классификация и распределение фольклорно-мифологических мотивов по ареалам. Аналитический каталог.
Summary of motif
OverviewThe nightingale (or, less commonly, someone else) takes the copper's eyes and does not return them, leaving her blind.
Berezkin category: The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 7, Etiology of plants and animals and of their peculiar features, particular animals as protagonists of cosmological stories, metamorphoses, weather and calendar.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| B115A | 99.97% | Angry at the carpenters, the character (St. Peter) asks another (Christ) to make the knots in the wood or branches iron. The latter only makes them very hard. |
| H7C1 | 99.97% | The trickster first deceives Death (the devil), and then, also by deception, enters paradise. |
| J51A2 | 99.89% | A girl must penetrate an inaccessible place with the help of chicken bones. She loses one or there are not enough bones. By cutting off her finger and using it as she would use the bones, the girl achieves her goal. |
| K176A | 99.89% | The hero searches for his magical wife who has left him. It turns out that one of the winds is flying to her to perform a certain task. The hero follows him. |
| I22G1 | 99.71% | In another world, the hero sees many strange things, including colliding stones (but they do not block his path). |
| L9G | 99.68% | A man's hair or beard of an unusual colour is a sign of his demonic nature. |
| M39G2 | 99.57% | Numskulls try to shovel nuts with a pitchfork. F stranger shows them how to do this work more easily with a shovel (a basket) |
| H7B1 | 99.47% | Having received a magic bag, into which any creature can be forced against its will at the owner's discretion, a person gains power over Death or devils. |
| B33B | 99.47% | At the border between winter and spring, a bird (usually a thrush) flies away prematurely into the cold and dies, or raises chicks and they die or suffer from the cold. |
| L65B1 | 99.47% | A man exchanges sheep (goats) for dogs. The exchange seems unequal, but the dogs help him achieve success. |
See the 100 most similar distributions →
Map of motif dispersal
DistributionDrag the map to pan, use the scroll wheel to zoom — choose a texture or projection below
Traditions
4 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 4 traditions: France, Germans: North (Low- and Central German dialects): Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, Pommern, Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony, incl East Frisia and Oldenburg), Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Thüringen, Saxony-Anhalt, Sachsen, Brandenburg, Rügen, Estonians, Russian Federation
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How to cite: Fielder-White, J. (2026). The Folklore Database. https://folkloredatabase.com
0009-0006-1672-4451
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